Week 9. Unwrapping & Texturing Imperial Shuttle

Applying the same methods i discussed in the last blog entry, i moved on to texturing the Imperial Shuttle. While the process is very time consuming it is vital you spend this time if you want your models to look as realistic an accurate as possible. 

The slight difference with the shuttle as apposed to the X-Wing is that the shuttle is mainly comprised of grouped objects instead of one large main mesh. This certainly beneficial and saves you some time when it comes when in comes to unwrapping the parts of the ship.  

Detaching wing panels for texturing  

There was still times when i decided to detach individual panels of the ship, on the wings for example. This just makes working in Gimp much easier, as when i was creating a weathered and scratched surface i wanted these details to be all facing the right way, ie, from the front to the back of the ship. This just ensures all the textures are uniform. This also allows for a cleaner more precise texture when there is a variation on the colour on certain panels of the wing.   

Unwrapping the main wing 

Wings fully textured 

I added a reflection map to the glass to clearly differentiate the the metal and glass textures. I also lowered the opacity setting slightly, not too much though as the original source images clearly show a tinted translucent effect. The reflection makes the material look a lot more realistic and might have some nice effects when i start to add a skybox and lights to my scene. 

Editing and applying screen material 

For the smaller less significant parts of the ship a basic texture could be applied without the need to unwrap and export a UVW map. I have seen previously that the time spent doing this on the the small complex and insignificant objects on the ship does not justify the final outcome and my time is better spent elsewhere. So for the small detail at the rear of the fuselage and the gun barrels a basic texture was applied. 

Shuttle fully textured

Rendered views of finished shuttle 

When the texturing was complete i started to have a little play with the wings on the shuttle. I plan to animate the wings to show them opening during flight. This is when grouping parts of the model together as opposed to attaching them to be one larger mesh becomes significant as i can isolate the wings and manipulate them individually. 

Rendered views of ship with wings folded in 

The only thing i would like to add  is when i move onto adding lights in the scene i will try and create some sort of engine glow for the rear engine. As without it the ship appears to have to propulsion which will look unrealistic when i start to animate the ship.  

Week 8, Texturing X-Wing

Once i was comfortable with the different techniques regarding creating and applying material to objects i started with my first model the X-Wing.

Learning form previous exercises i decided that to get the most control and the highest level of detail to do my models justice, that using the unwrap modifier would be the best way forward. I have also learned that as my model is highly complex and i made its mainly one large mesh apart form small details, I would break down the model into smaller easily distinguishable parts. Then when i apply the modifier the polygons will be fewer and much easier to paint on. This will also help me get nice clean lines on different parts of the ship.

The first step was to break the model down as if it has literally been assembled in a physical sense. Again this greatly improves the precision i will be able to get when applying the materials.

I identified the parts of the ship that would have different colors and textures and separated them individually.

For example the roll cage of the cockpit is a different color to the main fuselage and a different material (ie, metal and glass) to the screen, so i detached this from the main mesh.

Detaching cockpit roll cage 

Painting Rollcage map in GIMP

Detached back of Fuselage 

  

Sometimes even when the materials are the same like on the front of the fuselage or parts of the wings, as it has different colored panels, i decided to remove the panels individually in some cases this gave me cleaner lines and textures on the objects.

Main panels and red side panels being detached individually 

Red wing panels being textured separately

When i had rendered the templates i could take them in to Gimp and start building up paint layers and applying effects to the materials. I used a noise map effect to give the metal textures an authentic brushed metal look, and used different style and sized brushed to create a weathered effect on parts of the fuselage. When you paint these templates in Gimp it gives you a lot of freedom to create individual and realistic looking textures. And because they are all unwrapped using the UVW modifier when you apply them on them model they fit perfectly and look quite realistic. 

Fuselage map and material before application 

     

X-Wing with front of fuselage and cockpit materials applied 

I could also add more effects in the material editor in 3Ds Max to get a more accurate representation of the materials. For example changing the specular and gloss levels on the material to give the metal a shiny and reflective appearance. Also with the glass i changed reduced the opacity slightly and increased the reflection parameter to make the glass look more realistic. If i had time with the models i could of introduced some geometry inside the cockpit and then i could have it so you could see through the glass completely and into the pilots bay.   

Continuing the method of detaching and unwrapping individual parts of the ship, although very time consuming starts to give a realistic looking ship. 

Engines Textured 

Fuselage fully textured 

There are times when the UVW Unwrap modifier has its downfalls though. For small and high poly objects the maps sometimes become highly complicated and impossible to distinguish and work with.

Unwrapped polygons 

  

In this example the polygons are for small wires and details on the ship and due to their size a UVW unwrap is not only overly complicated but unnecessary. I can just apply a basic material to these smaller less conspicuous objects and still get a realistic overall effect by using reflective maps and bump maps.

When the entire ship was textured to my satisfaction i could start to re-attach parts of the ship back together. In some cases i decided not to re-attach and just group objects, as the model was originally mainly one whole mesh, which i now know is not always best practice. Especially when it comes to the animation, when i might want to animate individual parts of the ship like the wings folding out for example.  

Rendered Views of fully textured X-Wing

I am pleased with the final model now its textured, the materials look realistic and reflect accurately the original source images and models i have been working with. The detail i was able to achieve by unwrapping each part of the ship and texturing individually is definitely something i will use again in my other models. Although i might experiment more with the different map channels that are available within the material editor. Overall though the first model was a success. 

  

Week 7. Materials and Texturing

When all the  models where finished to a standard i was happy with i had to move onto the making and applying materials to the models.

Before i started trying to texture the models i tried out the various techniques of applying and creating materials that 3ds max has to offer.

The most basic way of applying a material is to just drag it onto the desired object. This gives you no control on how the material is displayed on the object though. While this will work for basic materials that have no pattern or particular detail, if any kind of precision is required we would be better off looking to add a UVW map modifier.

The UVW map modifier allows you to chose how you would like the material to be displayed on the object, for example as a cylinder, sphere or box.

  Planar and Box Mapping using UVW map modifier  

This gives you more control on how you want the material displayed but it still limited. The objects still have to conform with one of the mapping options available, which are still pretty basic. My ships are far more complex and mainly consist of irregular shapes and will require unique maps for each part the model.

To get the most amount of control over the maps and how they are displayed we will use the UVW unwrap modifier. This allows you unwrap the desired polygons in different ways and create a flat or box map of the object. Having all the polygons laid out flat separately allows for a more accurate application of materials. If the selected object is complex it can however become difficult to establish which polygons are which. This can partly be resolved by stitching polygons back together, which 3ds max allows you to do. This helps to reestablish where each polygon is in relation to the entire object. Which is necessary if you are going to create a pattern of some kind or require a seamless material.

Stitching a box back together at the edges 

Flatten map option of Unwrap UVW modifier, with seams identified

If you desire you can also choose which edges will be the seams where the object will unwrap to and get a flat easily distinguishable map.

Along with the flatten map options you can also use box mapping. Box mapping is slightly different as keeps the object in fewer pieces. This option can work better for high poly objects like spheres, when you need to wrap a material or pattern round a smooth surface and have no seams.

Sphere Box map UVW template 

Flatten Map UVW template of same sphere

While not a huge difference w can clearly see that box map is in fewer pieces and makes texturing the template slightly easier.

When we have a UVW map and template we are satisfied with we can take the template into some image manipulation software such as Photoshop or Gimp and paint directly onto it. For future reference i will be using gimp for all my texturing.

3Ds Max has in itself vast resources for materials creation, for this project though i will be using the simplified version of the material editor. We can still produce some interesting  materials and effects though with this compact version.  

Combining different procedural maps we can create a good looking sky and clouds material which can be seen form the ground or above depending on your preference.

Creating a sky clouds material using procedural maps 

Rendered view of completed material